You Are Oxygen
by Loz.Loola
Summary: Sam/Jess. AU. 'She misses a lot of things. Light and sound and breath. And Sam. Sam most of all.'
1. Chapter 1

**Author:** Lauren.

**Rating:** Rated T.

**Character/Pairing:** Jessica Moore, Jess/Sam

**Summary:** Sam/Jess. AU. 'She misses a lot of things. Light and sound and breath. And Sam. Sam most of all.'

**Disclaimer:** The characters aren't mine but the alternative universe sure is.

**Author's Note:** Oh Jess, we barely knew you. Because this is the way the Pilot should have ended, with Jess alive and not so well, but alive. If you're interested for more, review, if not, then don't. Love you kids.

* * *

For a long time it was all just white.

She could breathe, chest rising and falling, she could hear, but everything was a swirl. Like she was listening underwater and the words were all muffled and bubbles.

Not that they really speak _to_ her. They speak around her, to each other, into space, but never really to her. Because who really speaks to a coma patient, apart from in the movies.

She doesn't understand. Where is she or why she's there. And the last thing she remembers… Sam's face. And flames. So hot and too close and ouch.

But Sam's face. He's below her and she tries to whisper but the words scratch and stick and refuse to come out. And all she's trying to say is his name.

She can still smell cookies. It's one of the better things that the night recalls. Brady? Brady. She's glad to see him even though she's left the shower on, rather she never got into it because the doorbell distracted her.

But Brady isn't Brady and she wonders how long he hasn't been. Brady, Brady what are you doing? Brady, Brady please, _stop_.

She misses a lot of things. Light and sound and breath. And Sam. Sam most of all.

Time is fluid, fluid like the blood that pumps sluggishly though her. How long has she been asleep for? She's Alice, falling endlessly through the rabbit hole, a dot in space, a light year away already and she's still going, going, _going_. **Gone**.

Jessica Moore was rich and Jessica Moore was pretty and Jessica Moore never got to play soccer but she lined her dolls up in rows until their petticoats were all matching.

Sometimes, she thinks she feels. Something physically and stinging and is that an injection because I hate those. Hate them. There was this one time…

When my Daddy had to hold my hand and I tensed so tight that the nurse hit the muscle and it ached for hours after. Hours and hours. Hours and hours.

You learn a lot when you exist only inside your own head. Sort of puts things into perspective. Like how you hate when your boyfriend never opens up? Doesn't really matter anymore. And how your parents always disapproved of you going to college instead of getting married? A blip on the horizon.

She wore blue to her debutante ball. It's a tradition, her Mom kept saying over and over until Jess could have repeated the speech in her sleep. You're upholding our reputation as a family, it introduces you to society. As if society didn't know Jessica Moore already, but she nods and keeps her golden head upright and smiles and poses and lets her date squeeze her a little too tightly to keep him sweet but damn straight she'll slap him silly when they're out of the cameras eye.

Colours form in the white. Shapes and forms and is that a person? A real live person and can she see? She can see. She can breathe. Maybe she'll make it through after all.

Jess has never fallen before. Not like she does for Sam and she hides it behind her hair and her hands but it's the truth and it's beautiful and so is he. With his too big plaid shirts and his lopsided grin and he'd love to be a lawyer someday but he'd never admit that, just like she'll never say how much she loves him. But she does, oh so she does. Jess loves Sam Winchester and one day she says it and it all makes sense.

Her fingers tingle and she wonders if she's imagining it but no, they're moving. Really moving. She hears stifled crying and wonders who it is. Sam? She can only hope.

Everything is less vague now, less hollow now. More open and she feels like maybe she's making her way back from the mist. Achievements include toes and fingers moving, recognising voices and almost speaking. The first time she tried she was alone and it came out as a croak. But a noise nonetheless.

Thoughts dig in the back of her skull like fingernails and maybe they'll drive her mad before she can express them.

The paint presses against her skin and she squirms and tears leak from her eyes and down her face. Her nightdress gathers as she moves up the wall, up the wall? Up the wall and she's on the ceiling and tearing, ripping, blood. Brady why, Brady please, Brady _no_. No this isn't, no.

She wakes up. Finally. And the date. The date is.

May 2nd 2006 and it's exactly six months.

She's alive.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author:** Lauren.

**Rating:** Rated T.

**Character/Pairing:** Jessica Moore, Jess/Sam

**Summary:** Sam/Jess. AU. 'She misses a lot of things. Light and sound and breath. And Sam. Sam most of all.'

**Disclaimer:** The characters aren't mine but the alternative universe sure is.

**Author's Note:** Doesn't make much sense does it? It isn't supposed to, I'm keeping you in suspense kids. Shout out to breakdown156 because you reviewed and ily for that. Let me know your thoughts on this one and thanks to everyone who alerted and favourited too. You guys are too much love (:

* * *

Jessica Lee Moore died on November the 2nd 2005 in Palo Alto, California.

Jessica Lee Moore wakes up on May the 2nd 2006 in somewhere else entirely different.

She healed quicker than any of the doctors had anticipated and from the second she was lucid, she was itching to get out. Get out of the hospital and the disinfectant scented hallways and away from the _real _sick people. She was just passing through, a visitor. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

No one had explanations, no one knew who she was. She'd arrived without identification, in nothing but a blackened, singed nightgown with a profusely bleeding vertical slit along the length of her abdomen. Some things couldn't be explained, and how she'd survived that type of injury was one of them.

They'd presumed she'd been attacked, she hadn't corrected them because what answers could she have given? Everything was a blurry haze in between Sam's face and the ceiling and flames and stumbling into the hospital.

And somehow she didn't think they'd discharge her to anywhere else but an institution after hearing any of that so she stayed silent.

In her bedside table she found a scrap of paper with co-ordinates and a name scrawled in what looked like black Sharpie.

Getting hold of a map was the easy part, she said she didn't know the area well and wanted something to read other than the crappy newspapers they provided. She'd been sassy from the get go, so her request or reason hadn't been questioned. Sitting up late at night trying to read it made her wish she'd paid more attention in Geography class.

At least the co-ordinates actually led to something, something concrete she could research but the name was an entirely different matter. Missouri Mosely makes less sense than anything, even less than the smell of burning hair that fills Jess's noise every time she tries to sleep or the fact that she always wakes up with Sam's name on her lips, drenched in sweat and crying. Tears mingling on her face and everything tastes of salt and ash.

Sometimes she thinks she remembers. She's outside her body watching herself talking to Brady and words like 'sacrifice' and 'potential' keep coming up. But it all means nothing and something and she can't seem to think about any of it coherently.

By the time they're sure she's ready to go she practically looks like her old self again. The burnt hair has grown back and it looks almost healthy now, flowing in honey blonde waves past her shoulders. She stares at her face in the mirror, stares hard and even though she's been set on leaving since the moment she woke up all that time ago, a ball of fear still churns rigidly in her stomach.

Because she's done the research and she knows about the house fire and how everything she had is gone. Sam thinks she's dead. Her parents, her sister, they all buried her and mourned and she won't make them grieve again, she can't. So she has to be careful, extremely careful.

The fresh air hits her like a wave as the double doors slide open and she doesn't look back, not once.

Jessica Lee Moore is dead and someone, someone new has taken her place.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author:** Lauren.

**Rating:** Rated T.

**Character/Pairing:** Jessica Moore, Jess/Sam

**Summary:** Sam/Jess. AU. 'She misses a lot of things. Light and sound and breath. And Sam. Sam most of all.'

**Disclaimer:** The characters aren't mine but the alternative universe sure is.

**Author's Note:** 'Kay so this is the next part. It's very Jess centric, because I don't think there's many or enough of them out there, so I wrote one. Let me know what you think, reviews are so much freaking love it's unreal. ILY. Bye.

* * *

She makes a good criminal.

She's smart and quick and alluring when she has to be. No one would ever suspect her when she applies for credit card after credit card and the aliases get more and more ridiculous but who would question her. Because her voice is smooth like honey and she speaks articulately and they're glad to have such a well spoken customer because normally they're all so rude and loud. Jess is anything but.

So when she arrives at a dealership and asks to buy the dusty red pick up on the forecourt, he doesn't think twice when she offers to pay cash with a sweet smile.

Lawrence, Kansas. She's heard of it before but it's distant in her mind, drifting (not that it's a surprise, she isn't sure of anything she thinks anymore, it's like a sieve up there.)

She finds Missouri easier than she'd expected, she's listed in the freaking Yellow Pages and it feels like maybe, finally, she's onto something and the universe is throwing her a bone.

Driving with the wind in her face feels almost free as the newly cropped strands of hair dance across her face (long hair felt too Jessica, she's Jess now, forever and always.) And this is all so new to a girl who grew up craving to be someone else and now she really is. She finally is.

"Well look at you."

Jess is taken aback because who is this woman, they've never met before and yet she's looking at her like they've known each other their whole lives. Her own Mother doesn't look at her like that. Her own Mother doesn't look at all.

"Excuse me?" her voice is tiny in her chest.

"How are you Jess?" she freezes, frozen right there on the doorstep "Come on inside sweetie, I'll make us some tea."

It's too hot when she drinks and there's a saccharine edge to it, honey maybe? Or just plain old sugar. She doesn't know. She doesn't ask.

"You probably have a lot you want to know," Missouri encourages her and Jess starts, as if she's only just realised there's someone else there.

"Um," her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth and it's painful to tear it away "I-"

"Do you want to know about Sam?"

Her eyes shoot to Missouri's face and his name is sharp to her ears "How do you know Sam?"

"He came by, a while back. I knew his Daddy."

Jess lets her mind turns this over for a minute before she decides what to say. Sam was here? Really here? His ridiculously long legs folded up by this couch? "I don't know what happened to me."

Missouri nods "He told me you'd want some explanation."

"He?"

"John Winchester. He was here too, right after his boys."

It's a kick in the stomach and Jess takes it hard, lets it knock her aside. "I don't understand."

Missouri looks down, regret flickering across her kindly features "He said you wouldn't. Didn't do a very good job of helping you if you ask me, but then he's never been one for tying things up neatly."

"The co-ordinates and your name," Jess hates how slow she's being but it's all so much and so fast that it makes her sluggish "That was him?"

"And the hospital," Missouri added "That Yellow Eyed bastard would have left you to bleed out on the pavement if it wasn't for John."

Yellow eyes, why do yellow eyes jolt something inside of her, why does something seem to click. Brady had yellow eyes, Brady had yellow eyes right before- "Do you mean Brady?"

"Who?"

"Sam's friend, he came to the apartment right before-" she paused, because saying it was remembering "Right before the fire." Brady, Brady please, _please_. Brady, Brady what are you doing?

Missouri watches her for a moment with measured eyes. "How much do you want to know?"

Jess stares, and thoughts are a swirl. The blue or the red pill, take one and you can go back to your normal life, take the other and you'll never be the same again. I'm not the same. I'm Alice, I'm on the praecipe, this is my rabbit hole.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises left to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

"Tell me everything."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author:** Lauren.

**Rating:** Rated T.

**Character/Pairing:** Jessica Moore, Jess/Sam

**Summary:** Sam/Jess. AU. 'She misses a lot of things. Light and sound and breath. And Sam. Sam most of all.'

**Disclaimer:** The characters aren't mine but the alternative universe sure is.

**Author's Note:** So, I hope you've liked my wild little Jess centric ride so far. I actually really like this update, I can't exactly pinpoint why, but I do. As always, reviews are the best things ever. Love you guys.

* * *

Jess's sky falls in.

It isn't as simple as finding out the truth, it isn't a curtain being drawn back. It tastes like bitterness and dishonesty and betrayal and loss. She has lost so much and it's hard not to draw a direct line to Sam. She tries so hard.

Missouri tells her everything, tells all she knows and all John ever told her. About Azarel and Mary Winchester and fire and blood dripping from the ceiling. Of blonde hair and steel and when she's finished Jess just cries.

Missouri asks about what she can remember and Jess feels embarrassed because it isn't much. Steam pouring out from underneath the bathroom door and a plate laden with cookies and Brady. She was surprised to see him (what are you doing here Brady? are you okay?) Brady, Brady, please, please, _stop. _I don't understand.

But there's a big black space in between the arriving and the flames and she can't piece it together as much as she tries. And she tries. She imagines and creates her own ideas but nothing fits. Her segments are too big and there's no flat edges and it'd be one messed up jigsaw if she left it that way. She screams that she doesn't know anything in frustration and it's endlessly exasperating. But whatever it is, it's raw and bare and maybe she'll never know for certain. Whatever it is.

She isn't sure what to do next. Now that she has no co-ordinates she's just a girl with a truck. Missouri tells her she'll know what to do, that it'll be innate and Jess wishes she had an ounce of her certainty because all she can feel is indecision written in her bones.

But before they part, Missouri wants to show her one more thing."Pull over here."

It's a suburban street and Jess doesn't understand but she unclips her seat belt anyway and glances around in the half light of the evening.

"Over there."

Her eyes follow Missouri's pointed finger and there's a house. It's pretty and neat with a garden out front. But she can't see anything special and so she watches.

"That used to be the Winchester house."

Her lips form an 'o' and she exhales it. So there is something more in Lawrence. And John was just pointing it out to her. This man she's never met who saved her life. Sam's Father. The one person who understands completely what his son is going through because he's lived it once before.

Jess feels like she's falling again and she wonders how many more times she's going to have the ground ripped from beneath her feet.

She sets up shop in a local motel room because it doesn't feel right to leave town yet, not when she's finally beginning to feel stable. Not when she feels so close to Sam here. Plasters the walls in newspaper cuttings and scrawled pieces of information that Missouri has given her or that she's gleamed herself from interviews or the internet (she bought herself a laptop, or rather Miss Selina Kyle did. If the cashier noticed that they were serving Catwoman, they didn't comment.)

She invests in a gun. She figures, in her new line of work, life, whatever, she'd better be prepared, come what may. So she buys a gun. She doesn't know much about it except that it's dark and it fits nicely into her hand and it isn't too heavy so she says yes I'll have this one thank you very much. She pays cash.

After three days, there's a letter waiting for her at reception when she returns from her usual evening spent eating in the nearby diner. He throws it to her as she passes, still licking acidic ketchup from the tips of her fingers. She waits until she's alone to open it, and when she does she tears the envelope ferociously. A piece of paper. Her hands tremble as she turns it over. Co-ordinates. How did he know? Sliding a hand inside the back pocket of her jeans, she withdraws the scrap with Missouri's name on. The writing is identical. Her heart stammers a beat in her chest.

Looks like she has a purpose again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author:** Lauren.

**Rating:** Rated T.

**Character/Pairing:** Jessica Moore, Jess/Sam

**Summary:** Sam/Jess. AU. 'She misses a lot of things. Light and sound and breath. And Sam. Sam most of all.'

**Disclaimer:** The characters aren't mine but the alternative universe sure is.

**Author's Note:** Firstly, thanks all of you who've reviewed, it means the world, they're my favourite form of feedback. If you have any questions, or ideas or anything, feel free to message me and I'll reply ASAP. Secondly, I'm taking bets as to who you think Jess's mystery visitor is. John? Dean? Sam? Or someone else entirely? Thirdly, any favourite sections, phrases, anything? I love specific stuff, it helps me because I know what I like but it's good to see what my audience likes especially too. It helps me to improve and I want everything to be as well written as possible. Fourthly, enjoy. (:

* * *

She's on the road early the next morning, her hair tied tight in a ponytail at the back of her head and a takeout coffee cup sandwiched in between her knees. She wonders where Sam is. She wonders it everyday but today it feels like a weight in her mind. She wonders if she'll ever see him again.

'_Hey, everything's going to be okay. I will be back in time- I promise.'_

'_At least tell me where you're going.'_

Her last words to Sam and she'd been playing the intrusive girlfriend. If she'd known they were going to be her last words though, would she have acted differently? She definitely would have told him she loved him. But this was her, this was Jess and she'd always wanted to know where he was going. She'd just never figured this was the way she'd find out.

She has no idea what she's doing. Really, no freaking idea. John sends her messages and co-ordinates and she constantly puts herself in the line of fire for a man she barely knows. She feels like a pawn in a game of Winchester chess. And somehow, she doesn't mind so much. Because everyday feels like a step closer to Sam. And that could never be a bad thing.

Gritting her teeth she ties off the final stitch and collapses backwards, the springs protesting beneath her. Her left hand idly slides beneath her vest top to feel the long indentation left on her skin. The long, dark scar of her first brush with the supernatural that her beloved boyfriend was apparently so familiar. Ex-boyfriend? She doesn't really know what they are anymore.

She misses familiarity, she misses warmth, she misses all the things she used to take for granted. She misses not worrying about money, or constantly having to think of aliases, which slip through her fingers at an alarming rate. She can't believe it's even been close to a year since she woke up because it feels like- Things have changed so inexplicably in such a short period of time and she's someone else entirely now.

She stares up at the ceiling and wonders if she should be afraid. Of dying. Of living. Of existing without Sam, of staying in this same way forever, constantly chasing something, fighting someone else's fight. It scares her. The not knowing, the not caring. The latter scares her more than anything. When she gets to the point that she has no regard for her own life, then she'll know she's lost and they've won. That Yellow Eyed bastard will have won.

She works hard, no one could fault her on that. Because the Winchesters have a lifetime of experience over her and every now and again she'll hear their names, always spoken in a hushed whispers and then she'll feel like she's drowning in their wake. And it's overwhelming.

But for now she'll do what John asks of her, because if she doesn't she's dead, literally and figuratively.

She decapitates vampires and exorcises demons and blasts spirits full of rock salt. She puts herself back together time after time, when the evil is gone and the road is calling.

Infinity stretches out ahead of her. The path laid at her feet is treacherous and she often thinks that it'll kill her before she reaches the end. She wonders if she's brave enough to face what lies in wait. Whether it's courage, stupidity or blind faith that keeps her following the numbers written on paper.

The door bursts open with such ferocity that, despite the things she's seen in the past months, fear leaps in her chest. Scrambling across the bed towards the desk, she aims her gun and places a shaky finger on the trigger. No matter what comes through, she has to remember to have the guts to fire.

But what arrives isn't what she expects. Or who.


End file.
